In a move away from last week’s decision by a federal judge to uphold a ruling that restricts collective bargaining, the Dane County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an employee handbook Thursday that reinforces collective bargaining agreements with workers.
The handbook was created in a collaborative effort with workers unions and management to honor bargaining agreements and illustrates communication and guidelines for the county’s employees, Rep. Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, who serves on the Dane County Board of Supervisors for District 18, said.
This decision was made in light of a judge upholding Act 10, Sargent said.
Sargent said Dane County created the handbook because, despite the ruling, the county would like to continue the process of sitting down with workers to negotiate.
“Its pretty much taking the same information from our collective bargaining contracts and putting that into handbook form,” Sargent said.
Dane County workers were instrumental in crafting the handbook, Sargent said. The process deviated from the traditional approach of having the management create the handbook, she said.
Dane County Supervisor Mary Kolar, District 1, said the document effectively documents the communication between employees and the county.
“We have state laws that have repudiated the ability to communicate between management and labor,” Kolar said. “In Dane County we do value communication.”
Kolar said she thinks the handbook will create better workplaces because they function best with communication between employers and their employees. She said she believes that agreements such as this should be a basic leadership requirement.
Sargent said the handbook had more people register in support of it than any item ever recorded by the board. She said this could be attributed to the amount of Dane County workers who showed up to support the document’s creation.
“It was overwhelmingly supported by the workers in Dane County,” Sargent said. “They were instrumental in drafting it and they showed up in force last [Thursday] night.”
Kolar said the handbook will be adopted once it is signed by the county executive, which she said will most likely be soon.
Sargent said she thinks Dane County is the first community to pass something like this since the judge’s ruling. She said she hopes other communities and institutions across the state will also honor their agreements with workers.
“We hope that other communities including the City of Madison, teachers in the school board and other counties across the state will take our lead and use this as an example of how we can continue to the process of working with our employees rather than delegating to them,” Sargent said.
The Board of Supervisors also passed another resolution Thursday encouraging University of Wisconsin Health Clinics to continue collective bargaining efforts with its employees. UW Health’s collective bargaining agreements with workers are scheduled to end in 2014, Kolar said.
Kolar said the resolution also had “phenomenal support” and workers in the clinics would like the ability to have say in the scheduling of their shifts.
